Abstract

The Carpathian Basin was until the
middle of the 20th century an important territory for locust outbreaks. This
paper combines the earlier data and our own research related to the present
status of three most important locust species of the period mentioned. It
appeared that during the 19th and 20th centuries populations of Calliptamus
italicus and Dociostaurus maroccanus generally decreased, and even Locusta
migratoria lost its earlier economic importance in the Carpathian
Basin/Hungary. In any case, the extensive and deleterious outbreaks known
especially from the 14th to 19th centuries seem to stop in the Carpathian
Basin. Beside the large waterway-regulations (= drying up the Pannonian Plain),
the rapidly intensified agriculture might be the main reason for stopping of
the earlier deleterious outbreaks and damages caused by L. migratoria, however,
the desiccation of the Pannonian Plain temporarily created favourable habitats
for extensive outbreaks of D. maroccanus and other xerothermous (e.g. C. italicus)
species. Environmental changes evoked by a new trend in the agricultural
land-use, in making extended surfaces of uncultivated (set-aside)
lands/fallows, seem to provide suitable habitats for scattered local outbreaks
in the future too, as was the case in 1993 with the Moroccan locust in Central
Hungary.